Origins of the “Clenched Fist” image

ByMark Vallen
“The Fist.” Frank Cieciorka. Woodblock print. 1965.

The militant symbol of the clenched fist has been around since the early 1900’s, springing up in graphics from Mexico and the US, to Europe and Russia.

Typically depicted as part of the human figure, holding tools or other symbols, or breaking through a barricade, the iconographic fist underwent a change at some point in the 1960’s; it became an abstract graphic element detached from the human figure.

The fist was original conjured up as a detached image by San Francisco Bay artist and socialist militant, Frank Cieciorka. Just returned from Mississippi in 1965 as an activist in the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, Cieciorka was inspired by the woodcuts of Mexican master, José Guadalupe Posada, and he set out to create his own series of woodcuts, the clenched first being the first and the most popular.

Cieciorka’s Fist became one of the most iconic New Left graphic symbols of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

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